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What is your take on this/these?

Pages 116-118; Section. 221 – Requires the Secretary to establish a government run plan that is supposed to play by the same rules as private plans in the exchange. The bill, however, requires the government to set the benefits of all of the plans, including its own, creating an implicit unlevel playing field by allowing the government to set rules for itself.

Page 120, lines 4-21; Section. 222 – Gives $2 billion and as much money as is needed to pay claims for 90 days from the Treasury to the government plan. While it requires the government run plan to repay the money, it only requires the plan to repay the money over ten years – and without any interest payments. This gives the public plan an enormous capital advantage over private plans.

Page 124, lines 24-25; Section. 223 â€“ This section shelters the government plan from any administrative or judicial review of any payment rate or methodology it uses. No company can sue the government for price fixing.
Page 118, lines 14-22; Division A, Section 221(g) â€“ Unlike private insurance plans, who can be sued in state courts, the government-run plan could only be sued in federal court. This affords the government plan significant advantage over the plans it is supposed to â€œcompeteâ€ against.

Pages 41-47; Division A, Sections 141 and 143 â€“ House Democrats would establish a new government-run â€œExchange,â€ through which a new government-run plan would offer coverage alongside private plans. The Exchange would be run by a new â€œHealth Choices Commissioner,â€ who is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. As the Commissioner is serving at the pleasure of the President, some may be concerned about the lack of independence of this individual. The Commissioner would also be required to work with the Secretary of HHS, creating the potential for a serious conflict of interest that could significantly disadvantage the private health plans where more than 170 million Americans currently receive their health coverage.

I have come to the conclusion this bill IS Obama's way of creating jobs. Obama will be appointing people left and right to be in the Health Choice Admin. and all the stakeholders... So people who have 10x more money then any of us ever will, will be getting a job. So that counts as Obama making jobs! Just another Obama "promise" kept. What a waste.

Answer by
Anonymous
at 7:47 PM on Aug. 14, 2009

You know I was going to go through and point out all the inconsistencies between the above interpretation of the bill and the actual bill, but what a major waste of time that would be.

Even the very first thing you posted is misleading. Sec 221 requires the government to set the benefits for all the plans in the health exchange. Private insurers dont have to participate in the exchange.